Chereads / A "Slave" in Arthur's "Court" / Chapter 60 - Chapter 60

Chapter 60 - Chapter 60

The first thing Gawain knew about it were due to the various loyal soldiers and idle Batavians who walked past him talking about some sort of drama unfolding by the well. Exchanging a curious look with Galahad, they shrugged and went to investigate. If nothing else, Gawain figured he could disband the congregation and make them all get back to the more pressing matter of getting the fort back in order.

When they came upon the spectacle of Tristan bent over the lip of the well and shouting down into it, Gawain thought his friend had lost his wits.

"Tristan!" he called. "What on earth—?"

But Tristan flapped an arm in his direction, even as a voice hollered up from the well: "Get me out of here!"

He knew that voice. But he couldn't believe it.

With Galahad at his heels, he ran to the well and stared down into the utter blackness. Far, far below he could see the shining surface of the water and a dark glistening shape.

"Kitten?"

"Yes!"

"Kat?" he repeated incredulously. "Is that you?"

She growled. "No, I'm the little fairy that happens to live down here. Who do you think?!"

It was too strange. "What are you doing in the well?"

"What does it bloody look like?!" she screamed. "I am speaking Latin, yes?"

"We need to get him out of there," Galahad said. "I'll fetch another rope." And with that, he dashed off.

"Finally! Someone who's thinking of a solution!" Kation crowed, splashing about.

Tristan finally looked at Gawain, who was shocked to see the scout's face was a riot of emotion. Unheard of. "Kat's alive," he whispered simply.

Gawain shook his head, realising the agony Tristan must have been in while labouring under that belief, and clapped him on the back. "He sure is. Tough little brat, aren't you?" he called down. "And how did you get down there, anyway?"

There was a pause. A long one. "Slipped," she finally said.

"Really," Tristan said darkly, his voice laden with disbelief.

Gawain had a hard time believing it too—after all, he had seen Kation walking along the top of the stable doors, perfectly balanced. There was something else going on here, but now wasn't the time to start questioning the girl. Not with all the onlookers gawking at them. With this in mind, he turned to glare at the onlookers. "Nothing to see here! We're getting him out, so you can all shove off!" he barked.

The Batavians and soldiers milling around shuffled off just as Galahad came running back with a coil of rope. "Got it!" he declared cheerfully, and threw one end of the rope down the well. It hit Kation on the head.

"Fucking bastard!" she growled, her voice echoing up to them in perfect clarity and volume as she splashed about for the rope. "Thrice-cursed, impulsive halfwit! Aaargh, Galahad! I'll have your guts for bowstrings!"

Gawain had to laugh as Galahad's ears burned and Tristan stared down the well in disapprobation.

"Have you got the rope?" the scout asked sternly.

There was the sound of splashing as Kation hunted about for the rope, and then she ducked under the water to tie it around herself. "Yes, damn you! Stop picking your teeth and pull me out before I die of cold!"

Gawain and Tristan did the lifting, while Galahad gave a running commentary that they all endured with the stoic, silent conviction that they would kill him forthwith. There were many false starts as Kation had no way of bracing herself against the green-slimed walls of the well:

"He's slipping… oh! Watch out for that—!"

"Shiiiit!"

Splash.

More cursing from below.

"Okay, try again… yes, tie it around your waist. Not a running noose, though—you'll squeeze yourself to death…"

"No, really?" Kation yelled sarcastically, splashing and ducking down under the water as she was forced to spare her hands to tie the rope, which was becoming steadily more slippery with the constant ducking.

"I'm only trying to help so stop ripping up at me, you hellion!" Galahad yelled, his own temper fraying now.

She kept falling back into the water and was forced to explain that she had exhausted the last of her strength staying afloat and eventually tied a loop in the end of the rope and stuck her foot into it, standing in it like a stirrup as they hauled her up. She weighed almost nothing to them, but since she was being scraped along the side of the well, it was harder to keep her steady.

When she finally appeared over the lip of the well, she looked just like a drowned rat. "It's about bloody time!" Kation's grey eyes were kindling a deadly inner fire, made even more alarming by the fact that her right one was filled with blood and her lips were blue from cold.

With Gawain keeping tension, Tristan reached out and grabbed her collar, heaving her bodily onto the lip of well where she wiped the water from her face and shook out her sopping sleeves.

"Get kitten to his room," Gawain advised. "The infirmary's already packed beyond belief. I'll let Arthur know we found him and see you later with something hot for the boy." He smiled at the girl, whose teeth were now chattering loudly in her head as she shivered violently. "Don't think you'll need a bath now, brat."

She growled shakily as Tristan hauled her onto her feet, slinging her arm across his shoulders. "Let's go," he growled, nodding his thanks to Gawain and Galahad before hauling her off towards the barracks.

~oOo~

"Surrender now if you want to live," Tristan said to the girl as they barrelled into her room. She was so tired and cold that she didn't argue as he propped her up against the wall and lit the lamps. He ought to get a brazier in here as well and when he turned back to her, saw that she was listing dangerously to the side. Lunging for her, he settled her on a closed trunk and began unbuckling the sodden leather holsters that held all of Kation's weapons. She had managed to retrieve all her throwing knives and wasn't missing anything except her bow and quiver.

Kation didn't look at him, but closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. Her trembling was worse than ever as he slipped her out of her clothes, but she shied away when he got her down to just her leggings and short slip, slapping his hands away.

"N-no," she whispered.

"Don't argue," he snarled—falling back into the familiar frustration and annoyance that she never failed to spark in him. He was half-tempted to just tie her up and then cut off her clothes with a knife, but knew she was too tired to properly fight him. So he simply wrestled her out of the rest of her clothes. Once naked, Tristan ran a critical eye over her body, looking for anything more serious than scrapes and a multitude of bruises. She had several deep scratches on her arms, legs, chest and back, but they wouldn't require stitches… which was odd. He'd expected far worse. Nevertheless satisfied that they were all clean from her impromptu swim, he wrapped her in a blanket and carried her to the bed. He swathed her hair clumsily in a towel and then went to close the shutters of her window.

"You bastard," she muttered, plucking at another blanket which he swiftly threw over her as well.

"Oh grow up," he retorted, hunting through her trunk for some fresh clothes. She always had clean clothes. Finding a tunic and leggings, he tossed them into her lap and retrieved the blankets from his own bed. Throwing them over her, he also handed her some of her throwing knives and clapped her on the shoulder before leaving her to sleep.

The rest of the day was spent in a whirlwind of chaotic repair works to put the fort back together again. The governor would have to be delayed, or re-routed… or something. Arthur was trying to be in too many places at once, wanting to know everything that was going on.

Tristan had found Arthur in the Sarmatian barracks, surrounded by officers and locals wanting 'just a moment' of his time.

"I wish Kation weren't missing," he said miserably to Tristan. "He'd know exactly what to do. In fact, he's probably—" he stopped, eyes widening. "Of course!" with a hasty apology to the crowd, he ran into his quarters. Tristan was close on his heels, hoping that Arthur wasn't searching for Kation there. He might get it into his head to start a manhunt for her.

Instead, he saw Arthur searching frantically through the neat stacks of documents on his desk. Then, something in red ink caught his attention. He gave a cry of triumph and waved the piece of parchment in the air, ecstatic. "That boy is a genius!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" Tristan asked, relaxing against the doorframe.

"Your peerless boy wrote a contingency plan for what to do if the revolt took place. See?" he shoved it under Tristan's nose. "He seems to have guessed what would suffer the most damage, what steps ought to be taken—even who should to be assigned to oversee particular tasks. Kation is a rare gem, Tristan. We must treasure him." Arthur looked down at the document again, eyes shining with a wealth of emotion—chief among them sincere appreciation and admiration.

Tristan couldn't help but agree. Where had she found the time to plan that, write it down and leave it on Arthur's desk?

After that things ran more smoothly. If nothing else, Kation's document allowed Arthur a framework which he could manipulate, contradict and improve upon. She had managed to sharpen his focus and gather all the pieces together without being present. Remembering with a wince all the times Kation had haunted Arthur's decisions with her scowl and sarcastic eyebrow contortions during meetings, Tristan figured it was probably a blessing to Arthur's image that Kation was currently buried under a pile of blankets and snoring her head off.

By the time evening fell, Tristan had gone to the tavern and retrieved a light supper for Kation and himself. When he entered her room, he found her curled up in a tight cocoon, totally invisible under the mound blankets. Only the way it twitched when he shut the door told him that she was in there at all.

"I got you some dinner," he said simply, setting the basket down on the floor next to the bed and retrieving a low stool to sit on.

She emerged from the mess of blankets, her tousled hair sticking up in all different directions as she blinked at him sleepily. "It had better be hot," she grumbled, wriggling into a sitting position and freeing her hands to take a clay pot fully of hot broth and a wooden spoon from him. As she wolfed it down, Tristan told her about the day's work—and even mentioned the way her note had saved Arthur's sanity. She took this as her due and shrugged modestly.

"You look terrible," he said, eyeing the scratches and cuts all over her exposed skin.

She swallowed her mouthful of food before fixing him with an incredulous stare. "Do you know how many rebels I had to fight? How many times I got hit? I lost count."

"So how did you make it to the well after the battle at the gates?" he asked. "The soldier I spoke to said that none ran."

"We didn't," she replied, her voice hardening. "I was knocked out at the very end of the fight, when we knew we'd won, and came to as they were cleaning up. But I was too tired to start hauling bodies around, so I snuck away and went to the well to draw some water for a quick wash."

"And how did you fall in the well?"

"I told you, I slipped."

"I don't believe you."

"No, really, I did." She looked embarrassed, but didn't seem able to blush. Her lips were still bluish. "I was hiding inside the well from Aquinas and Arthur—since I knew they'd want to put me to work. I was braced about three feet down and the stones were so slippery that I lost my grip and fell. I didn't want to shout for help in case they came back and accused me of shirking my duties."

This was so typical of Kation's workshy ways that he had to laugh, especially when coupled with the relief of realising that she was alive after all. If stress could kill, she'd put him in the ground by next month. She smiled and finished off the last of her meal. Tristan put the empty pot and basket on the floor and made to leave when she reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

She didn't flinch under his questioning look. "We need to talk, I think."

"I thought you wanted to sleep," he said grumpily.

"I've been sleeping all day—besides, I get the feeling you want to tell me something that doesn't have anything to do with why you still haven't washed, or the clearing up of the fort, or the governor's imminent arrival."

This is why he was doomed: she knew him far too well.

"Do I have to tell you now?" he groaned.

"Our days will be very busy for a while, so tell me and we can forget you said anything embarrassing in the morning."

He hesitated again, unsure of himself. Of where to begin.

Then inspiration struck. "Well I can at least solve one problem," he said, and quickly went back to his own room, where he quickly washed the worst of the sweat and grime off himself with a basin of water and a rag. As he did so, he thought frantically of something that would change the subject.

Nothing came to mind, and so fearing the worst, he resigned himself to oblivion as he got dressed in clean clothes and padded miserably back into Kation's room. She gestured to the other end of the bed, where he sat down quickly, and they watched each other silently for a long moment.

Eventually she spoke. "So talk," she said, her mismatched eyes boring into him. He thought her gaze was very sinister with that bloodshot eye—like some sort of half-demon.

"Is this a truce?" he asked, wanting to make sure he'd read her underlying message properly.

She didn't blink. "Depends on what you have to say for yourself."

"Spiteful little brat," he admonished, nudging at her foot. She didn't seem to notice, so he swallowed and composed himself. He would not lose his temper. They would actually talk to each other like adults and actually resolve some of the things that lay between them.

"Well what I wanted to say concerned Rosula,"

"You astonish me," she said sardonically. "I seem to recall that you referred to it as a 'mistake'," she added, her tone encouraging him to finish that thought.

He grimaced inwardly and half-wished he had never mentioned it, aware that Kation's phenomenal powers of recall was one of her most formidable weapons. Thus he was forced to be honest too; but did he want to lie to her? Could he?

"It was a mistake."

"Hmm."

Painfully aware of his own clumsiness, he went from bad to worse. "Truly, I never meant… you wouldn't understand," he muttered, conscious of the quagmire he was walking into.

"Never meant what? And what could I possibly fail to understand about this? Clearly you don't even like Rosula, so why the obvious confusion?"

Another of her weapons (provided you weren't her target) was that sometimes Kation chose not to circle issues with delicacy. She could unbalance her opponent by going straight for the throat. Right now he hated it. "I wasn't confused about her."

"True, she's not complicated enough to confuse anyone," Kation remarked. "So Rosula was the first free cunt that sashayed past you on that fateful night of inner turmoil…" she mused, as if telling a story. "You, half-blind with all these tremendous and mysterious feelings, grabbed her like some kind of wild animal and hauled her back to your lair…"

"That's enough," he said, simultaneously embarrassed and amused by her overly-dramatic tones.

"… Where you have your wicked way with her!" Kation said, becoming more animated and shaking a finger at him. "She is so intoxicated and awed by your feral decisiveness that she just lies still in case the beast above her starts to feel peckish after he's done fulfilling his initial urge." She threw back her head and cackled at the idea.

"Stop!" he exclaimed, annoyed.

"How will you stop me?" she gasped between laughs. "Throttle me? It might be the only hope you have."

"Do I look like the kind who hurts women?" Tristan was deeply offended by the very idea of it. In his society women were revered—man's equal and opposite.

"No, you're the kind that kills them in battle," she said simply. "You know, I was really confused too; especially since you've been spending more time with me."

"To make sure you're safe," he argued.

She made a noise rather like 'pfft' through her lips.

"I'll always look out for you," he growled, wishing he wasn't so aggravated by her unending stubbornness. "No matter how tough you are."

She shot him a lazy look, but under those sleepily lowered lashes her eyes glittered intently.

It was with this thought that he remembered it was actually his fault she was even in this situation, and that was when the correct synapses finally started firing. Since the start of her increased independence, he had become extremely aware of how much he relied upon her, how fond he was of her—finding her violence and cunning an enthralling mixture. Like a particularly potent wine that he couldn't stop returning to.

As they sat quietly for a while, he became aware that she was still watching him unwaveringly, as if she was pondering something deep and important. "Say it, for God's sake," she exclaimed suddenly.

"I thought you weren't religious," he said. Tristan had never believed in gods, especially not the kind who actually interfered with humans, but because of the girl who lay curled up innocently across from him like that… yes, he could safely say that he suspected a higher power was punishing him for something. Maybe all the lives he'd taken.

"I don't," she replied tersely. "It's just an expression. But if you stop obfuscating for a moment, I may just start to have faith in a deity after all." Her expression morphed into a horrible parody of encouragement. "It's one of those high-risk, high-reward situations." She purred, her eyes brimming with hidden knowledge.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered, springing to his feet and making for the door, but Kation got there first, shedding all but one of her blankets.

And she had a knife in her hand.